


Just A Semblance Of Myself

by sasha_b



Series: Clan of Two [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Action, Complete, Coruscant (Star Wars), Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Gen, I totally used stuff from the movies for my own purposes, I'm keeping some characters secret for story, Interplanetary Travel, Mando'a, Mystery, Post-Season/Series 01, Series, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22092226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha_b/pseuds/sasha_b
Summary: After leaving Dagobah having found no answers, Din Djarin and his foundling follow a new lead that takes them to a place Din really doesn't want to visit again.
Relationships: Baby Yoda & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Series: Clan of Two [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1589140
Comments: 125
Kudos: 304





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is set a few months after the end of season one, and a few weeks after the first story in this series.

Din doesn’t like using the odd tech known as a hyperspace ring. But the most recent intel he’d managed to squeak out of a target – the man is currently hanging in his storage bay, the small carbonite contrivance he carries with him being put to a lot of use lately – had pointed to –

“I hate Coruscant.”

The kid looks up at him from where he’s sitting on the Mando’s lap; the knob he tends to want to play with is shiny with baby spit and Din refrains from making a face – even though the kid can’t see it. He has a feeling the boy would know, however.

The kid gurgles at Din and his ears go up as he holds out the knob, even as the engines that power the ring begin to roar to life and the ‘Crest rocks a bit in its dock.

“No, thanks,” Din says to the kid, “you keep it.” He moves the controls of the ship to the correct settings for use in the ring and tries not to tense too much. “Hold on,” he adds. “This is going to be weird.”

The kid laughs as the hyperdrive of the ring kicks into gear, and they shoot off, Din’s stomach twisting as it has the few times he’s used this mode of transportation. He wraps a gloved hand around the kid’s shoulders, holding him into place as the little one really wants to stand up and look at the stars that blur around them.

“Uh uh,” the Mando tells him. “Too dangerous. Besides, this will get us there in no time.” He frowns. “Unfortunately.”

The kid looks up at him again, then raises his clawed hand and touches Din’s Beskar covered chest, over the place his heart is positioned. He splays his fingers and then moves the appendage, patting the spot softly a few times. Din huffs a laugh, though it’s a quiet one. The stars zip by, their beauty not lost on him, and he rubs his free hand over the back of the kid’s robe.

“Don’t worry about me,” he says, the vocoder in his helmet forcing the metallic sound of the words. “I’ll be okay. I have you to help me.”

The kid coos and spits words Din has no idea the meaning of, but the tone is one of sweetness and he smiles behind his helmet. “We’ll be okay,” he amends. He leans back in his chair, the smile fading as he thinks again about Coruscant and his last time there. Not an experience he would want to repeat. Especially with the child in tow.

After the fall of the Empire - _ha_! - the cityplanet had been in chaos until the Rebels had stepped in and tried to impose some semblance of order. They’d made it the capital of the Republic for a while; that had been too much work and now they just shuffled around to different worlds. He’s not sure that’s any better, but with the amount of crime on Coruscant despite the Rebels – there’s just too many people – it’s a shifty place. And he’s really not happy about bringing the kid there.

But the lead was the best he’d had in weeks, and he knows a bit of the history of the Jedi and Coruscant, and he’s kind of hitting himself not having thought of it before.

Well, again, not his favorite place.

He stands and takes the kid with him, the knob the kid’s been holding dropping to the floor. The kid forgets about it almost instantly when they descend the ladder to the open cargo hold of the ‘Crest, and Din sets him down on his makeshift play space, the cradle being used for sleep only.

“It’s going to be a few hours,” he tells the kid. “Why don’t you … yeah.” He turns his head, following the sets of spanners the kid has lifted without touching with his eyes as they bob along in the air, the kid cooing and gesticulating at them. He turns his huge gaze on Din, his bottom teeth showing as he smiles and says nonsense words and Din lifts his hand and catches the wrenches as the kid drops them into his palm.

“…I’ll just check the manifold, with these,” he finishes lamely.

_How did he know?_

The kid waves at him and sits, lifting various things and letting them float around his head, nonsense baby language flowing from his mouth. The Mando watches for a bit longer, and then retreats to the galley, where he fiddles with the manifold for a while, thinking about the kid and his Force power, and _stars please let there be someone I can talk to on gods blasted Coruscant._

*

_Give me the asset._

_Cara, dead on the floor. Greef Carga, wounds covering his body, crawling toward the detritus of something Din doesn’t want to acknowledge._

_His own helmet jerked away, his face bare for everyone to see, and he blinks slowly, blinded by blood and sweat and tears and where is the kid???_

_He edges away from the burnt out door of the room, his knees taking his full weight, hands wiping his face – his bare face! – and he sees one little green ear, and it’s red with blood and he_

“Shit.”

He sits up, sleeveless tunic and pants wet with sweat, the ship making a soft pinging sound to announce their arrival at Coruscant. The lights in the sleeping quarters are dimmed, and he tugs a flight jacket over his torso as he rises, the dream falling from him too slowly. He pulls his boots on and his helmet goes over his head, the full armor waiting for him just as soon as he settles the docking, and he ascends the ladder, turning the alarm off as he reaches the cockpit.

“Bay 276,” the port control tells him, and he submits ident numbers to them as he pilots the ‘Crest out of the hyperdrive ring and into the Hell that is Coruscant.

It’s late, and he’s thankful, as he’s not quite ready to face it. Not after that dream.

He guides the ship into its spot, and he powers the engine down as he tells the ground crew _no damn droids_ and lets them know he’ll be spending the sleeping hours on board. He’ll get himself and the kid through customs in the morning.

Mando descends the ladder, and then approaches the cradle, where he’d put the kid the night before. The little thing had gone to sleep almost immediately; he’d eaten after wearing himself out lifting things and shrieking and laughing, and Din’s face had actually hurt from smiling at the sight. The kid had lifted his pulse rifle at the end, though, and that had been the end of that. He’d had to placate the boy with one last snack in order to keep him from crying when Din had snatched the gun out of the air with a sharp “No!” but, at least he’d gone to sleep quickly, only a few tears of disappointment on his little face. That had made Din ache, but it hadn’t been safe and that was that.

Then again, this was the same kid that had stopped a wall of flame and had turned it back toward the trooper that had shot it at them in the first place.

The lights in the cargo hold are still dim and despite the amount of activity around them – the damn city never shuts down – the kid is still out, and Din twists his lips around the words he wants to say, but doesn’t.

Instead, he turns and heads toward the front of the cargo, passing the weapons cabinet and stopping briefly in order to remove said pulse rifle. He then makes sure the cabinet is completely shut. If the kid got a hold of any of his stuff again, especially since he doesn’t understand how dangerous that is…Din closes off the back half of the small hold and clenches his hands into fists, the rifle slung over his shoulder.

Mandalorians are few and far between in the best of circumstances, and they live in the shadows most of the time even when participating in a covert. Huge cityplanets are not common hangouts. Especially when one has had a bad showdown on one before.

Din isn’t afraid of anyone. Not really. What he’s afraid of is what’s already begun to happen, which is _closeness_ and trust and _stars, fuck, shit_. The kid has seen his face, even if he’d made the choice without regret. That could lead to jeopardy and maybe hurt – in more ways than one. He has to be ready, has to be more than prepared. This time, there won’t be any place to run to like there had been with the giant horrible spiders. Coruscant is just a maze of metal and brick and Din might be able to shoot his way out of most situations, but this place? Much, much harder to do.

He unslings the rifle and sets it down on a table close to a window near the bay door; he can see their dock and also keep an eye on anything he doesn’t want to miss. The bustle of the place can almost be heard through the hull of the ‘Crest, and he grinds his teeth as he slowly disassembles the rifle, going through the cleaning process, which normally has him calm and centered quickly. Now, his thoughts are bouncing everywhere, his stomach is a knot, and he can’t keep from looking out the window every few minutes. His ears strain for sounds of the kid waking, but luckily none are forthcoming.

Some things have changed with the kid. He is still the same, sweet natured and easy to laugh baby, but Din remembers the choke hold he’d thrown in two seconds at Cara, a _friend_ , when he thought Mando was being threatened. He stops what he’s doing, setting down the rag he’d been using to oil the rifle, and looking out the window to make sure _no damn droids_ or anyone else is walking by, he removes his helmet, and slowly and deliberately slips it under his arm.

Rising, making sure the gun is locked for use, he walks as quietly as possible to the door he’d shut and slides it open, the armor he’d waited to put on sitting, shining and beautiful, on his bunk. He watches the kid sleeping in his cradle as he puts on the Beskar, relaxing somewhat when he’s covered with its weight, and he touches the new sigil with a gloved finger without realizing what he’s doing. He approaches the child, still carrying his helmet, and he kneels at the foot of the cradle, in an imitation of what he’d done the first time the kid had seen him, face uncovered.

The helmet he keeps with him, but he doesn’t put it on. He’s lived a strict life, the way he’s lived since his parents had been killed and he’d been rescued by the Vizla clan. He doesn’t exactly know his age, but he knows it’s been about twenty years, and it’s something he’s very used to and very comfortable with. Having the helmet _off_ makes him perspire and worry – but, this kid.

They’re a clan. He knows that. He’s good with that.

In his locked off heart, he’s more than good with it. And despite not being afraid of anyone or much anything, he is afraid of _that_.

He licks dry lips and cocks his head as he watches the boy sleep, the little hands grasping at whatever he’s dreaming about. Din's armor is like a weight on him, and he wonders, despite the surety of what it is he does and how he lives his life, how it would feel without it, raising his boy and not following the creed. Like Cara had said. Like Omera had.

“Stars,” he whispers in dread. “Fuck,” he adds, the crudeness of the word perhaps enough to wake the kid, who opens his huge eyes sleepily, blinking and sitting up slowly. Din is instantly contrite, and he slaps a hand over the controls on his wrist guards, shutting the lights in the cargo hold off almost all the way. It throws his face into shadow, and if that’s the best he can do without awkwardly slamming his helmet over his face, well, whatever. “Hey, kid,” he whispers as the kid whimpers at the change in his surroundings. “You’re okay. I’m here.”

 _Oh, fuck_. The kid reaches his arms up, still wobbling in drowsiness, and Din reacts without examining his motives and lifts the little thing up, holding him in his arms, rising to his feet as the boy clutches at his armor and the edge of his cuirass. It’s dark and quiet and the feel of the slight weight in his arms is enough to allow Din to focus, finally, to allow his thoughts to stop racing, to allow himself to slow and to be present and to stop his clenched stomach and speeding heart.

He walks to the window he’d been looking out of, turning the kid so he can see out of it. “This place,” he murmurs, the lack of Beskar covering his mouth making it easy to whisper. “This place is Coruscant. And it’s awful. But we have a place and a person to check out here, and I will do anything to help you.” He cants his eyes downward at the baby, who’s staring in rapt, wide eyed fascination at the _huge_ cityplanet before them.

He points a clawed finger at the lights of the skyline they’re closest to, and the Mando nods, solemn and resolute as he holds his boy - _his_ \- in his arms as they both stare at one of the places Din’s past might come back to haunt him. “Yeah, _ad’ika_ , that’s where we’re going. And I’ll be with you the whole way.” He smiles without paying attention to it, and only realizes it when he focuses on the kid, who is attempting a copy of Din’s expression. Only his teeth show a lot more, and Din thinks he was never this ridiculously _cute_ as a child.

The kid yawns, and Din turns back to the hold and crosses back to the sleeping area. He leans over the cradle and attempts to set the baby back down, but he squawks and clings and the Mando sighs, and retreats to his own bunk, fully armored other than the helmet that he still carries. He sits on his cot and leans against the wall, crossing his booted legs as he makes a crib of his limbs the kid can rest comfortably in. Snuggling in, Din only winces once when the kid accidentally claws through his pant leg right above the left greave.

They settle in together, and despite the worry he has about being in Coruscant again and what they might actually find the next day, Din knows this is what –

Yeah.

This is what actually matters. He holds his helmet up for a moment, and looks through the visor at what most other people see when they look at him. The ship makes soft _pings_ and _pops_ in the dark, and he feels relaxed as he lowers the Beskar to rest on the blanket next to him. It’s just the kid. It’s just him, and the kid. And his bare face, and for now, that’s all right.

Tomorrow will be another story. But he’s thankful for this, right now, and he leans his head back and places his hand on the kid’s back and shuts his eyes, blocking out the sight of the city lights and the worry about what the hell is going to happen next.

~


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Din and the kid don't have the very best welcome to Coruscant, while still looking for Din's contact and further information on the Jedi.

Oh, this place.

Sweat rolls down the Mandalorian’s forehead, and slides into the fabric at his neck. The brick he’s leaning against is warm from the day’s sun, and his blaster is also hot in his hand from having fired it most likely one too many times.

The kid is quiet _thank the stars_ as he hides in the sling bag Din is wearing over his shoulder; the stock of his plasma rifle bumps the kid’s head and a small whimper has him slipping the bag around and closer to his chest.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, cupping his free hand around the bag briefly. “I didn’t want you here for this,” he adds, leaning his head around the corner, “but too late now.”

The alleyway is empty, but the droids that had found them could be back at any moment. He continues to sweat and wants to wipe his face, but he’s not removing his helmet. Not with the things chasing them, and not with -

Coruscant has been many things, including the seat for the Imperial senate and the home of the New Rebel Alliance. It was also the base of operations for the Emperor, and there are plenty of factions still left that want pretty much anyone having anything to do with the Jedi or the Rebels dead. Din has a feeling if they knew about the kid, and what he can do, they’d already be dead.

But he’s a Mandalorian, and he’s the best at what he does, and that is not going to happen.

He leans around the corner again, and the click of a blaster touching the front of his helmet sounds loudly in the gloom of the dirty alley. The kid coos, and the droid that’s got its weapon in the Mando’s face points its visual system downward, toward the sound.

“Mandalorian,” its voice buzzes, “you and your quarry are to come with u-”

Din’s blaster rises and fires three times, and he’s spun around and under the droid and thrown it into the second one behind it before the thing can finish its command. The third one rounds the edge of the building they’ve been hiding behind, and the bolt it fires at them scorches Din’s left shoulder, skimming between the Beskar plate and his neck, catching the seat belt canvas of the bag the kid’s in. The strap begins to separate and the bag hangs, the kid making a sound Din’s not heard before, and he’s barreling into the droid and pushing the bag holding the kid behind to his back at the same time.

The droid fires at him again and the bolt bounces off his chest plate, the _ping_ of it hitting the window above jarring and Din grits his teeth and swings his pulse rifle around and cocks and fires just as the droid is right in his face.

His helmet protects him from the disintegration of the droid, but metal shrapnel flies around him and clangs and tings off of his armor as the thing disappears. He drops to a squat and lets the majority of it fly over him and land on the wet pavement, the shell of the droid oddly pretty in the lights from the local cantina across the alley.

He stands and holds his cocked rifle, the blaster ready to reach for – nothing. His breath comes raspy through the vocoder, and he sticks his head around the corner once more to make sure there aren’t any more of them.

He hates Coruscant.

He turns back into the alley, and shoulders his rifle. Pulling the bag that’s really frayed now back to his front, he hisses as the strap rubs the wound at his neck, and he touches it gently, blood coming away on his gloves. Well, can’t worry about that now.

“You okay?” he opens the flap of the bag.

Empty.

“Kid?” he shouts, not caring if anyone hears him. “Kid? Kid, where are you? _Ad’ika_ ,” he calls out again, not meaning to say it, but he’s not thinking quite straight. Gods damned Coruscant! Damned Imps! “Kid!”

He strides quickly down the alleyway, stopping at where they’d been when the droids had caught them up again. “Kid! Shit,” he drops the bag, and turns the headlamp on that rests on the right side of his helmet. He scans the alley, and when nothing is forthcoming, he turns the infrared on.

 _There_.

Tiny footprints, and he’s leaping forward and there’s a noise behind the trash cans that sit precariously balanced against one another and he throws them to the side without thought and _shit where is he_ –

A gurgle and a whimper and there – a tip of a green ear sticking out from behind the final can. _Is that blood_ but no, that’s a memory from his dream, and the can is kicked summarily out of the way and he scoops the baby up and away from the dirty ground, the kid grabbing at his collar and whimpering again, so pathetic and Din’s face is a mask of misery behind his helmet.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he says. “Are you alright?” He tries to hold the kid out at arms length, but the boy won’t let go of his collar, and Din can feel him shaking and gods damn it, _fuck_ this place and again, maybe a bad idea. Definitely a bad idea. “I’m sorry, kid,” he says again, his voice sharp and humming through the vocoder. “You’re alright? You’re alright, I’m here,” he’s babbling, but he rounds the corner and steps out into the street, shoving past late night revelers that stare at the vicious bounty hunter that’s carrying a green, crying – baby.

He slips through the crazy traffic and down a few streets, the lights and noise omnipresent and overwhelming and there – he slides to a stop at the back of a broken down building, the stone and glass that had made up the thing winking and shining in the wet and light from the closest structures. He tries the door; it’s locked, hilarious for a totally downed place, and when he can’t immediately get it open, pulls his blaster and shoots the lock.

It swings open, and they barrel through, and he kicks the door shut behind him.

He gets as far as he can inside the place as the kid’s cries calm, away from the door, away from lights and Din slows to a stop, now having enough time to take in their surroundings. He switches the kid to his left arm, and holds his blaster more firmly, the echo of his footsteps ricocheting around the huge –

“What is this?”

His metallic voice wavers and disappears in the open space of the place; they’re obviously in one large room, the central area, by looks of it, but he can tell by the way sound bounces here there’s a lot more going on than just one open space.

Trees and vegetation have grown through the crumbling walls, and as he carries the kid tightly to his chest, he walks toward what little furniture is left and comes to a stop, switching again to infrared as he scans what he can, making sure its safe enough to pause to at least check on the kid.

“Nothing,” he says out loud, “but upstairs,” he looks down at the kid. “There are rooms up there. Like a living quarters. And an info sys room. What is this place?”

His armband beeps; a message. He’s going to see to the kid first, then try and get a hold of his contact so they’ll know he hadn’t just skipped town. It’s the middle of the night, they’re exhausted and hungry, and hurt. He’d forgotten about his neck until he’d bent over to set the kid down, but now –

“Shit,” he sighs, but attempts to ignore it as he kneels down in front of the boy. The ears are drooping in what Din thinks is fear – he hopes not pain – and he holsters his blaster as he touches him gently with a hand, turning his head this way and that, checking for bruises or cuts and the kid raises a hand, still a bit sniffly, and grabs his finger. He squeezes tightly, and Din shakes his head as he’s sure the baby’s not hurt. His stomach knots; it could have been a lot worse. A _lot_. As it was, he’d just destroyed three Imp droids, gotten shot, and almost lost the kid. Not exactly the best way to get in and out of Coruscant quickly. He fished for the bag, wanting to find something for the kid to eat, rapidly realizing he’d left it –

The kid coos and hiccups, his eyes drooping with his ears. “Tired, huh,” Din says. “We’ll have to eat later. Don’t worry – I have this and we can find our contact just as soon as morning comes. In the meantime, you get some rest.”

The kid whimpers when he stands. “I’m not leaving,” Din says, trying to reassure him. “Just want to make sure we’re totally fine here.” He crosses back to the door he’d shot open, and shoves some broken planking in front of it. Not the best, but it will have to do.

The floor is wet in places and he looks up; the ceiling has broken in a bit and he can see the stars enough to know it won’t be long before morning. He’s got to get ahold of their contact so he can ask his questions and get the hell off this gods forsaken planet – unless –

“I’m not letting you stay here,” he says, not realizing he’s spoken out loud. “Not here.” The Imps are here still, no matter what the Alliance thinks, and Din himself doesn’t have the best past here. But he’s not saying anything about that to the kid or the contact, and in the morning he’ll find said contact and get them out.

He kneels in front of the kid again, and finding a few old blankets, makes an impromptu nest for the boy. “Come on,” he says, picking him up. “I’ll be here. You’re safe. You can sleep.” The kid begrudgingly moves to the blankets, and curls up, nonsensical baby noises rolling softly from his mouth. “You can sleep,” Din repeats.

The kid brings his hand up again, and grasps Din’s finger. Din stays kneeling, his joints aching and his wound flaring to life like he’s been burned by one of the armorer’s tools, but he stays put, not letting go of the little one’s hand. “You can sleep,” he whispers, even as the boy seems to be doing that.

He swings his body around and sits next to the child, their hands together, and he leans his head back. His hand that holds the kid’s shakes, and he allows himself a moment of panicked quick breathing and roiling stomach and aching skull before he grips at the kid’s hand a bit more tightly, closing his eyes, intending to rest for just a moment.

The contact here is nameless, but he has a number, and a way to find them. He hadn’t anticipated getting found out by Imp droids, even having gotten planetside as quietly and anonymously as possible. As he drifts off, he runs scenarios of how things might go tomorrow over and over in his head; he’s not going to be ambushed again.

His booted foot relaxes as he sleeps; he kicks over an old book, wet and swollen from age, and strange looking sabers that shine from the beautifully colored pages compete with the symbols on the walls of the old temple that has become the refuge of the child and Mandalorian for the night.

Stars light the room; the book with its lovely old drawings and the language written all over the walls of the huge, ancient building want to show themselves, but instead, they are invisible to the two sleeping forms that roll toward each other in sleep, the child curling close to the man, who in turn tightens his grasp on the little hand he still holds.

~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I researched the history of Coruscant a bit and decided to use the things I read about it being both the seat of the Senate and the Empire, and then a home for the capital of the Rebellion. Apologies if this doesn't make sense based on SW lore; I am using what I need to in order to move the story along.
> 
> This is a lot more straightforward than I'd anticipated also, but I hope it makes sense. Thank you all again for this wonderful fandom and your time in reading my writing. More to come. This is the way!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coruscant proves to be anything but routine for Din and the kid.

The Mandalorian dreams.

_His blaster is held in his left hand, his new pulse rifle slung behind his back, the release on the strap easy to pull free. He runs, his boots thunking on the wet pavement, his armor jostling, the collar pinching his neck as he speeds up. The woman runs close behind him, her own guns drawn as she follows in his footsteps, breathing harsh and heavy, her leather armor easier to move in than his Beskar._

“Down!”

_They both hit the ground as blaster bolts sizzle over their heads, striking the wall of the street they run through. Feet thunder close behind the bolts and Mando and his companion rise, Mando pushing her in front of him as he turns and fires his rifle backward, one of the pursuers blowing apart even as he faces forward and skids after the woman._

“Here!” _He follows the sound of her voice and rounds a corner, almost falling in his haste, and they pause in a doorway, panting, and he checks his gun, loading the next bolt as the woman watches the street._

“How did they find us?”

 _He shakes his head, and lifts the rifle again._ “Don’t know. It doesn’t matter now. We’ve got to go,” _he_ _bites off, the rain that’s been falling off and on over the red light district of the cityplanet intensifying as they begin to step into the street, Mando switching on his infrared, looking for any place, any spot to escape –_

_The blast knocks him to his knees, and the woman falls next to him, the sound of blasters rapid firing forcing a clench to his teeth and jaw and his neck is on fire, the metal near his nose smelling singed as he turns onto his back and fires at whatever he can._

_He takes out two more Troopers before the walls of the buildings around him begin to disappear and he tries to turn toward his partner, but things are hazy and he shakes his head and the earth shifts and wobbles and_

_melts and slides and the whole world is drowning in blood. He can’t see and the woman next to him dies at his side, her breathing rasping and rough as it stops and suddenly he can’t find his rifle or blaster and the Troopers surround him, but gods damn it he can’t see and he hears weird voices and the city lights are too bright – he can’t see but they’re bright, blinding him, and he tries to roll to his knees and stand, but the_ blood _and he hears the voices again and he can’t seem to stop them, and everyone is dying around him and water is lapping at his ankles, then legs and it’s full of helmets, and he knows what he’ll find if he picks one up. He does anyway, and_

_the room he’s in is full of huge windows, and he’s terrified and so young, and there are others around him and their friends are dying and the stars are too bright and the room shakes and where is_

Master Skywalker! There are too many of them. What are we going to do?

_He’s in the sewers, and his head is throbbing and it’s not working right and_

Do you mean my brain?

_Blood, everywhere, and he looks down at his hands, and suddenly he can see someone else’s hands, and they’re jerking at his helmet and it’s off and SHIT they can see him; he’s bared before everyone and he falls, keeps falling, and they see him and his face and_

Has your helmet ever been removed by another?

Never.

This is the way.

_NO!_

_There are others around him, others that wear robes like what the kid wears, only they wield bright and dangerous sabers that hum and pop and they fight each other, and there are Troopers there, too, killing everyone, and he –_

wakes, breathing tight and he’s suffocating and he sits up and threads his fingers through the strap of the wrap and cloak that covers his neck and he pulls his helmet off, the words of the armorer echoing down through the years, even though it was a few months ago.

_Has your helmet ever been removed by another?_

“Stars,” he grits out; he can’t breathe still, and he stands, the wound at his shoulder firing to life and he catches his hand on the small couch he’d fallen asleep on. Blood or something else sticky makes the skin at his neck pull, and he sits haphazardly on the arm of the couch, the dawn a few moments away. He can feel it coming, can see the room better now, and he almost trips over something as he struggles to stand completely.

It’s a book; wet and ruined and he leans down and picks it up, looking muzzily at the pictures, his head throbbing, and he flips through it, noting the sabers _sabers like the ones in his dream_ that are brightly colored, although most of the writing isn’t in Basic.

“What the hell?” he grits out, his voice catching and low, and shakes his head, grabbing for the helmet on the couch behind him. He catches the edge of the kid’s robe instead.

He turns and the boy is staring up at him, and Din, the Mando now named again after what feels like a millennia, wonders if he’s seem him looking this miserable and elated at the same time. He squats in front of the kid and touches his forehead gently; the boy looks exhausted, but a myriad of expressions cross his face as Din drops his hand. “You okay?” He shoves the hair back off his own forehead and goes to drop the helmet over his head, but the kid grabs at the slick Beskar and pauses his motion.

“No,” Din says gently. “This is –” he stops, and the kid’s eyes are shining and wet and he seems to be shaking; it is cold in the ruined room, but the kid’s been sleeping in a nest of blankets and his little robe and shouldn’t be cold. The sun is at the edge of the horizon, and he can see the stars fading as the place they’ve sheltered in begins to lighten.

He hunkers next to the kid, still holding his helmet under one arm, ready to put it back on. He’s too exposed, even to his – the – kid, and after that dream, fuck, that was too much. Who the Hell is Skywalker?

And he hasn’t thought about Shanna Maksy in he doesn’t know how long. On purpose. As crude as it is, _fuck_ Coruscant.

Din knows a little about the Force, from what he’s read in the histories when he was young and growing up on Mandalore, and his _buir_ had been schooling him on as much as he was able to learn. But Din had been easily distractable, and he’d wanted to do nothing but learn to fight, as he was small and felt weak and his parents had died despite being adults and he wouldn’t let that happen to him. He’d live, and he’d be strong and he’d learn the Way and he’d be the best damn Mandalorian warrior there was. He’d be the best bounty hunter and the kid is tugging at his hand.

The Jedi had been here before the Great Purge, and he’d heard stories of them trying to rebuild through the crappy networks in the outer rim. But he hadn’t paid that much attention, as he knew the outer rim, and he knew what was going to happen out there wouldn’t be affected much by anything the Alliance or the almost extinct Jedi were going to do in the inner world.

“Kid,” he says, having to clear his throat, his wound aching and he touches it again, fresh blood on his gloved fingers. “Are you all right?” he says again. He squeezes the baby’s hand, and tries a small smile, despite his pain and he knows they need to leave this building, and its creepy, dead rooms and just like on Dagobah, he gets the sense that someone, most likely many someone’s, has died here.

The kid isn’t looking at him; his eyes now brim over and yet his little mouth curves upward. He stands and toddles toward Din, and Din is forced to catch him as he’d jump off the couch they’d slept on if he hadn’t.

He makes a weird mewling sound and Din turns him to face him, wiping a finger over his cheek gently, removing the tears that have fallen.

The kid is struggling in Din’s hold. “Did you dream too?” the Mando asks, “this place is – kid!”

The kid is really fighting Din’s hold, grunting and squealing and Din sets him down, taking the opportunity to slip his helmet back on _something isn’t right here for sure_ and the kid waddles toward the book Din has dropped on the ground. He picks it up in his clawed fingers and then without looking back, turns to the wall and actually speeds toward it, Din following, confused. The sun has passed the horizon and Din’s stomach growls; he can only imagine how hungry the kid is.

The kid stops at the wall, and places his free hand on it, and Din skids to a stop –

The sun breaks through the damaged, colorful windows and the plants that grow wildly all over the huge room seem to move in sympathy with the sorrow Din can see on the kid’s face. “ _Ad’ika_ ,” he murmurs. “What’s wrong – oh, shit.”

The light from the windows hits the wall the kid is standing in front of, trembling and holding the book in one hand.

Din turns around in a complete 360; the walls are _covered_ in writing and symbols, like the ones he’d seen on the sabers that the strangers in his dream had wielded. Like in the book, and the kid is

his hands are empty, and the book floats in front of him, and the pages flip in rapid succession and the kid’s eyes are wide and watery and he babbles in baby sounds and Din immediately steps up to him, his booted foot touching the kid’s robe, and the book pages stop turning and it falls, open to a picture of a crystal like item – one word shining out in Basic that Din can read.

_Kyber_

“Kyber,” he reads out loud, and the kid turns to him, and the plants in the ruined building rustle and _sing_ and the sun moves beyond the windows and when he and the kid swivel their heads back to the wall and the book, the symbols and unreadable words are gone.

~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have used the timeline of the SW universe for my story purposes here; I know that after the fall of the Empire in ROTJ, Luke et al worked to have the Jedi temple on Coruscant rebuilt. I'm just going to say that the action in this fic happens between the execution of Order 66 and the rebuilding of the temple and the rise of the Alliance again. 
> 
> I have also taken ideas from the films and used them here in a way that might not be canon; sorry for any confusion. I also don't think Din is force-sensitive, but his connection with the child and the power of the old place they end up in definitely has an influence on him. I've visited old religious sites around the world before, and while not being a practitioner, I can "feel" the age of things. I really did at Stonehenge, and I liken this temple to that. It's a really fun plot device to examine.
> 
> Thank you again for the support and read/comment/kudos. So much love for this fandom. More to come, and yep, this is the way.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The past is never dead.

The sun is too high; they should have been gone by now.

“Kid,” the Mandalorian says, his voice echoey and buzzy in the silence of the huge room, the reverberations of whatever had just happened – the dream, the words on the wall, the floating book – rippling through his consciousness and if he had to admit it, his head was throbbing like someone had dropped a brick on it.

“Kid,” he hunches over, and squats next to him. “We need to go. Come on,” he reaches to lift the boy into his arms, but the kid squirms and whines and _scratches_ Din on the hand – his gloves have been shoved through his belt – and Din hastily sets him down as he adds the small cut to a long list of scars he’s already got.

He can hear water dripping and the thick foliage in the place is making it humid; he’s glad it’s not raining anymore, but now that it’s daytime, it won’t be as easy to sneak around Coruscant without Imp droids or even Alliance ones finding them. He’s not ready to face any strangers save their contact, and they need. To. Go.

The kid is touching the wall with both his tri-digit hands, and Din is sorry to see his face crunched in sorrow. He’s exhausted, the kid is exhausted, and he knows if he’s hungry, then the kid must be starving.

_Drip drip drip_

“You can bring the book. Let’s go, _ad’ika,_ ” he says, as gently as he can. He needs to clean the wound at his neck, too, but they have other pressing matters first. He retreats to the couch and picking up the least of the scraggy blankets, he fashions it into a sling, and returns to the child, slipping his now gloved hands under his arms and lifting him and the book up and into the makeshift carrier. The kid’s eyes are still wide and Din thinks he might be ready to cry, but after two or three tears roll quickly down his face, he stops, and he raises his free hand and touches Din on the helmet. He makes a querulous sound, and Din smiles under the helmet, although it’s quick and tight.

“Me too,” he answers, although he’s not sure of the question.

“Okay, let’s hit it,” he says, and slipping toward the opposite side of where they came in, he finds a door that opens onto a bigger room; a courtyard, really, because he can see the street as there’s no other door at the end. There are broken stairs that sweep down a wide walkway, and the columns that once supported this place are tumbled and half standing. He places a hand under the kid, and with the free one, draws his blaster, ever ready. Especially after the droids yesterday, and he’s still stumbling a bit from his wound, his hunger, and the damn dream.

He shakes his head, and huffs a laugh when the little one copies him. “Yeah, yeah,” he murmurs, still looking left and right at the edge of the door that leads into the huge, broken courtyard. Plants are everywhere, and he’s creepily reminded of Dagobah briefly, wondering if there are any hidden spiders here. _Ridiculous_.

He takes note of no one crossing nearby, and slipping silently through the shadowed building front, he makes his way easily through the rubble to the street. There aren’t any other buildings of this size close to them, and he wonders at that, as Coruscant is usually filled with homes and offices and clubs and places so much so that one can barely move usually.

“Okay,” he says to himself more than the kid as he hides them behind the last destroyed column; the baby is gnawing at one of the edges of the book. Din grimaces but doesn’t take it from him. What’s a little dirt going to do?

The sun is sparking off the dozens of speeders and other vehicles that roar past them and he jerks embarrassedly as a ding goes off on his gauntlet. The shading of his visor keep his eyes safe from the bright star in the sky as he raises his arm, the message short and sweet and he smiles – a rare, real one – as he takes note of where to go and how to get there from the coordinates provided by the contact.

“Now we have a plan,” he tells the kid, who responds by cooing and grabbing at Din’s pauldron. “And I know how to get to the right place without attracting the attention of unwanted eyes.” He looks at the street again, and then switches his infrared on –

“There.”

He waits for the street to clear, and as soon as it does, he darts from the relative safety of the strange old building, a vine of some length almost tripping him as he moves quickly to the foot of the huge staircase, jumping nimbly over pits in the concrete. He finds the grate he’d seen from their previous hidey-hole, and has it pried up and them through it in less than 5 seconds of standard time.

The hood of the person atop the crumbling old Jedi temple hides the face of its wearer; the sun glints off the binocs they’re carrying, and they slip down the side of the building through the detritus of stonework after the Mandalorian they’re watching and his cargo disappear through the sewer grate.

*

They walk through the disgusting, water filled and slime encrusted sewers.

Din keeps the look of repulsion off his face, for he thinks the kid would be able to see it despite the helmet. Or at least feel it.

The dried blood at his neck itches, but he refrains from scratching it as they walk; the kid’s stomach growls loud enough for Din to hear it and he squeezes the child in his grasp as he is held in the makeshift sling Din’s made from the blankets he’d found in the old building.

The book pokes him in the side, but he doesn’t take it from the kid. “I know you’re hungry,” he says. “I am too. We’ll meet our contact soon, and be back to the ship as soon as we can.” He speeds up to a slow jog, not wanting to jounce the kid too much, and the water he’s running through splashes against his boots and pant legs as he passes things he’d rather not see.

He’s been through here once before, he thinks. Definitely the sewers, but possibly this exact section, and that weirds him out a bit. He thinks he recognizes the markings on the walls, the signs that send workers to different treatment plants and he’s trying to read one as he jogs past when he –

Someone drops to a splashing halt in front of him. He’s drawn his blaster and has slung the kid around to his back in an achingly fast heartbeat, and he’s ready to fire without asking questions first. This is the way.

The someone is slight in stature but covered in serious leather armor, their hood up over their face, and Din wants to scratch his head as he’s sure that particular armor is familiar as well, but they’re in a dark, horrifically smelly sewer and he can feel the kid tense at his back and he wants nothing but to get off this _fucking_ cityplanet and try and find answers elsewhere. He’s praying that this contact that Carga has sent him – was the man _really_ trustworthy after everything they’d been through, yet? – was worth all this trouble. For a bit of intel about the kid’s possible family.

_I’m his family_.

He shakes that off, and holds his blaster at the ready. The dripping and the stink of the sewer rattles his teeth and he clenches his jaw, the kid clinging to his back through the blanket, and he can feel the book poking into his spine at the base of the back of his cuirass. He shakes the blaster once.

“Who are you? And you have ten seconds to answer.”

“Oh, come on, Mando,” the voice is lazy and Din blinks. “Surely you haven’t forgotten me so quickly.”

He takes a step forward and lowers his head, his gaze unwavering and his blaster held in rock solid hands. He arms the whistling birds that lay in silent readiness in his gauntlet; there is _no_ _way_ he’s hearing what he’s hearing. The kid squeezes his back and he can feel him trembling a bit.

“Show yourself.”

The slight, armored person lifts a gloved hand and lowers the hood. In the darkness of the sewer, Din hisses a soft _shit_ and only lowers his blaster an inch.

“You’re dead.”

“Obviously not.”

“I watched you die on the street!” his voice raises and he steps forward, his blaster up again, his arm jerking as he readies the whistling birds. They hum in their holsters and he points his arm at her, along with the blaster. He’s ready to grab the pulse rifle and blast her if needs be – what in the gods own hell.

“Lots of things can be faked, Mando. You know that.” She holsters her own weapon, and she looks up at him; he remembers that face like it was yesterday. Same black hair, same eyes, same wary expression. Same big amban rifle, same as his.

_This is why I work alone_.

“Did Carga contact you about us?” he answers warily. He’ll get the answer out of her one way or another, but _fucking Coruscant! Gods damn it. Krif_. He wants to get the kid out of here as fast as he can. What in the hell could she possibly know? She’s from Jakku, for the gods’ sake. That’s more backwater than any other place he’s been.

He can hear traffic from the street above them, and the kid whimpers against his back. He finds his hand, and squeezes it through the blanket, and Shanna Maksy, whom he’d thought dead for at least ten years, circles around behind him, her head cocked at a strange angle. Din turns with her; he’s not ready for her to see the kid, even if Carga had told her about his strange cargo. His feet are cold through his boots; the slimy water of the sewer sloshes as they move, a circle as each keeps the eyes on the other.

She swallows and purses her lips. “That the kid Greef was talking about?”

_Shit_.

Din doesn’t think he’s cursed this much in a long time, but she always did bring out the worst in him. “Yes. And he’s hungry, so let’s make this short.” He holsters his blaster, but keeps the ‘birds armed, just in case. She never was trustworthy, even when they’d been partnering on several jobs.

Besides, she’s supposed to be _dead_.

“Relax,” she sighs. “I’m not interested in your foundling, nor am I interested in turning you in to the Imps that have been asking about you. Let’s take a walk. This is an uncomfortable place.” She shoves her rifle behind her, and turns her back on him as she begins to walk down the damp tunnel. He cocks an eyebrow behind his helmet; _getting sloppy, are we?_ but follows her slowly, his pacing deliberate.

This had better be quick. He can feel the desire to return to the ‘Crest burning in him, the draw to be offworld as quick as he can. He’s been alone a while, and that on purpose. He works, had always worked, better alone. This reunion, or whatever the hell it was, was completely unwanted and –

“Come on,” she looks back over her shoulder as she points at a ladder that leads up toward the street. “This way is quick and quiet. And I have a bit of food for the kid I can spare.” She doesn’t wait, merely mounting the ladder two rungs at a time, the light from the street shining into the dankness of the sewer briefly, her body quickly blocking it out. “Come on, Mandalorian,” her voice floats down into the echoing tunnel.

He slides the kid to his front; the child is frowning, and chewing on the corner of the book again. Din gently slips it from his mouth, and tucks it deep into the blanket-sling. “Not long. I promise, we won’t stay long. Whatever she knows, it’ll be fast, and then we can get to the ship and get the hell off planet. Okay?”

The kid blinks wide eyes at him, and Din touches his head once with a gloved finger. His neck hurts and his back and he’s hungry and damn well tired and he wraps the kid more tightly in the sling, and as he climbs up the ladder, he doesn’t notice the glow from the edges of the book that rests against the child’s body, the light throwing weird shadows on the walls.

The grate he’s climbed through bangs shut beneath his boots, and nothing moves in the sudden stillness they’ve left behind.

~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't do OC's very much, as I am wary of them sounding super Mary Sue. But I am intrigued by this particular one, and I'm hoping she'll serve a purpose other than getting our leads from point A to point B, and from being a foil or love interest. NOT into that. This story is going weird places I didn't expect, so we'll have to see.
> 
> Thank you again from the bottom of my heart for the feedback/reads/comments/kudos/bookmarks! Y'all are the best.
> 
> More to come. This is the way.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Din deals with an old friend.

The kid gobbles the food Shanna sets in front of him; despite being hungry himself, the Mandalorian refuses the small amount of meat she offers him.

“Still hiding away behind that mask, hm?”

She squats in front of them, her rifle slung around her back. He nods at it and her armor. “New?”

“Same,” she answers, and goes to her knees, resting on her heels as she watches the kid eat with a gusto Din’s not seen from him before. The sun is high, and the room they’re hidden in has a window that opens to the street – Din can see the ruined temple they’d spent the night in across a few blocks. He stands while the kid is still wolfing food down, touching the baby’s head briefly as he passes, and looks out the window at the tumble down building, his body tucked behind the edge of the sill. He’s still alive and a successful hunter for a reason.

The kid gurgles through a full mouth and continues to shovel it in as Din lifts his own rifle off his back, slipping the scope off, and brings it to his visor. He trains the thing on the street, and looks left and right, and then focuses on the temple. It’s more ruined than he’d thought; he can see wet and smashed statues and concrete spread everywhere, and the remnants of carpet and yes, there’s the info sys room.

“What is that place? And why in the hell would Carga send me to you?’

He lowers the scope and the kid looks up at him, food on his face, concern in his huge eyes. Din shakes his head slightly, trying to make the kid realize he’s okay, and leans back against the wall, the _click_ of the scope being reattached to his gun loud suddenly. “Considering you’re supposed to be dead.”

His register is deep and confused and angry, and he finds – he locks a lot away; the Mandalorians had taught him control and focus and he thanks the stars for that everyday, even though sometimes he can’t manage it well. He finds that he’s angrier than he’d thought. He’d trusted Shanna for many jobs, and they’d backed each other well. She’d been a newbie when he’d met her, and he’d learned just what she could do after only one experience that had had both of them ending injured but successful.

The sun sparks off his pauldron, the mudhorn emblem reflecting sparks that dance across the kid’s face, and Din follows the lights to the brown of the baby’s tunic, the dirt encrusted on it hiding the true color of the fabric. Din has no idea where to get clothing for children, least of all one this small, and he smashes his lips together, forcing them into one, thin line behind the Beskar.

He’s going to need her help for a few things, and that makes him angrier.

“Have you been talking to Greef all this time?” He pushes off the wall, and approaches her and the child, who raises a hand and sounds a sad babble, his food gone and Din rests his hand on the butt of his blaster, his stomach twisting from rage and from hunger. “Did he know you were alive?”

She shoves a hand through her hair, the braids she’s still wearing tangling in her fingers. She curses and stands, and although she’s shorter than he is, he is reminded that her physical strength belies what lies behind the red skin. Her tattoos make the color of her eyes spark, and he feels the kid grabbing at his boot.

“ _Krif_ , Mando,” she bites off. “I did what I had to. And I work better alone, always have, and I had to sever our partnership without letting you know about it because I had to. My clients wanted secrecy, and that was the only way I knew how to do it.” She cants her eyes down to the floor, and gestures with a gloved hand. “I think it wants you to pick it up.”

He lowers the helmet to see the kid whimpering and tugging at his pants. Sighing, he leans over and picks the baby up, tucking him into the empty blanket-sack and sliding his hand under the bottom of it. The kid snugs into him, and he feels his back crack as his spine stiffens. At least the kid is full. The sun will be down in a matter of hours, and they can leave this gods forsaken city, hopefully with some answers and away from Shanna Maksy, who currently stares at him with a look of –

“ _You_ work better alone?” he asks, incredulity coming through the vocoder as a crackle. “Did you learn nothing about Mandalorians while we worked together? They were jobs, simple as that. You could have just told me. It would have been a lot easier, Shanna. And don’t you dare pity me. This is my – ”

He stops. She doesn’t need to know much more, as she’s proven she’s not trustworthy, and despite what he’s said, yeah, it might have been easier for her to just tell him and leave, but at the time, he might have been, well.

The IG unit had told him not to be sad. That particular emotion was long gone, and he wasn’t sad now, and wouldn’t have been sad then had she just up and left. But not being able to trust him enough to not lie to him, that wasn’t the way hunters dealt with partners. But then again, based on his past experience, especially ones like what had gone down on Alzac III, it was smarter not to have a partner. Period.

Shanna scrubs her hand over her face again, and crosses her arms. “Whatever’s going on with you now, Mando, I’m not gonna ask. But I’m here at the behest of Carga, and I’m gonna give you the information I have, and then I’m gonna send you on your merry way, as I don’t think you want to be on Coruscant any longer than you have to be. I know I don’t want you here any longer than you have to be,” she adds, a smirk crossing her tattooed face. She leans around him, checking the position of the sun in the sky.

“Look,” she says, powering up the projector in her gauntlet as she shoves her rifle out of the way. “There’s not much. That building over there,” she nods toward the collapsing temple Din and the kid had come from, “it’s an old Jedi place. Lots of people died there,” she adds in a low voice, “although I’ve heard rumors that some people from the New Republic want to do something with it again. Regardless,” she continues as he watches the projection, the kid aping the movements of Din’s head, “I was able to scavenge some files out of the info sys room. Some of the computers are still sort of operational.” She puts out her hand, and a small thumb drive ejects from her glove. “Here’s a hard copy. Take this to the ‘Crest; you’ll be able to get coordinates there. This isn’t much, but it’s all I could salvage.”

He pockets the file, and shoots a breath out of his nose that heats up the inside of the Beskar. “Jedi,” he repeats. “You know their history?”

“I know some,” she answers cryptically, and tugs her hood up over the horns that poke through her hair. She steps past him and looks out the window. “The sun will set soon, and you can follow the sewers back to the dock and get the hell out of here. The quicker the better,” she adds. “Look.”

He tucks the kid into a deeper hold; the child squawks but Din squeezes his hand briefly, and the noises stop.

“Shit.”

He curses again under his breath as he joins her in looking out the window. At least a half dozen Imp droids like the ones he’d destroyed when they first got there are stopped outside the ancient temple steps, and Din grabs his blaster before he realizes what he’s doing. Shanna’s hand stops his own from drawing.

“Uh uh.”

He looks at her, and as the sun is setting, the light shifts and her face is thrown into a shadowed relief that makes him feel years younger and old as hell all at once. The wound at his neck that he still hasn’t cleaned aches, and he is sticky and hungry and he shoves the blaster back into his holster, and turns from the window and grabs up the book and the small package of food Shanna had given him to take with them.

He turns to her as she opens the door to the tiny room. “Follow the same route back,” she says, her voice low and tired. “Gods, I hate this place sometimes.” She smiles, but all it does is make her tattoos twist and curl like living things, and he suppresses a shudder – he’s better off alone, and always has been.

He looks at the kid at that thought; the little one is burrowed deep into the blanket-sling, and fear is etched across his face and Din tries to ignore the burn in his gut and the twinge that echoes with it. What kind of life is this for such a young one? He’d been older when he was found and rescued –

The quiet laugh that ripples up from his gut and out the vocoder of the helmet makes Shanna’s mouth twist. “What’s funny?” she says, the words almost annoyed.

“Nothing,” he answers. “We’re going,” he looks down at the kid. “We’re going, okay? I’ve got what we came for. We’ll be to the ship in no time, okay?” His tone is gentle enough, he hopes, and he pushes away the dull throb of guilt and worry, thrusting the feelings into that lockbox that’s almost too deep to be found, even when he rarely wants to. He looks up at Shanna as he passes by her, the sun trembling on the edge of the horizon now, the lights of the cityplanet flaring to life, the place coming to wakefulness like it never did in the day.

His feet hit the first steps that lead to the sewer grate entrance. He stops and turns his head back toward her, wondering if he’ll see her again, and then wondering if he wants to.

_You lied to me. We were partners, and you lied. What kind of honor is that?_

“See ya, Mando,” she says breezily before he can speak. “You owe me nothing.”

He laughs harder then, a loud barking sound that has the kid jumping in surprise as he descends the stairs, the Zabrak woman who’d been on the run as long as he’d known her and before that, too, staying behind, leaning in the doorway and watching as they go.

*

He waits till the sun is totally set before sliding down the greasy ladder and back into the sewers; he can almost ignore the stench as his mind is so wrapped up in the things that have transpired in the space of about thirty-six hours. The kid is quiet against his chest, the book bouncing as Din jogs through the darkness, his helmet light dimmed as much as possible to keep from drawing attention.

He wants to examine his feelings and thoughts about the revelation that Shanna Maksy, orphan Zabrak girl from Jakku – he knows she’s not really from there, but it was where he’d met her originally – is still alive and had lied to him for a long time.

And so had Greef Carga, if he’d really known the woman was still alive. They were going to have a conversation when he went back to Nevarro, and Carga owed him a _lot_ if he’d been hiding this from Din. And then the kid makes a sound half like a groan, and half a noise of want, and Din pushes the thoughts of irritation and _hurt?_ away and squeezes the kid tightly to him. “We’re almost there,” he murmurs. “I’ve got you.”

*

Din doesn’t breathe freely until the lights and sight of Coruscant are at least a parsec away from the rear engines of the Razor Crest. He adjusts the autopilot, and instead of using the hyper-ring this time, he’s going to jump from port to port in order to get back to the outer rim. He’s not sure the drive will hold up, the words of the droid Q9-0 echoing briefly _sixty-seven percent capacity_ but he’s going to try it, regardless.

The kid is sitting in the copilot seat, and once the ship is following the coordinates to the next jump, the Mando turns to him and although the kid can’t see it, raises an eyebrow. “You still hungry? I am.” The kid smiles, all teeth, and blows a raspberry at him, spit flying.

“Hey,” Din says, trying to keep the laugh out of his voice. “Where’d you learn that, you womp rat?”

He slips out of his chair and picks up the kid. “Come on,” he says, touching a few buttons, checking the status of shields and fuel as they pass to the stairs. “Food.”

They sit at the small table near the ‘fresher and Din pulls down the packs of polystarch and veg-meat and opens them. He looks at the kid as he coos – it’s not a happy one. “Yeah,” Din agrees. “Not exciting. But we’ll be planetside soon, and hopefully can get something better.”

The stuff is ready in no time, and Din places his hands on the edges of his helmet, hesitating.

The kid has seen his face. They are a clan of two, and the kid is his, and he’s the kid’s.

_This is the way_.

He can hear the words in the voice of the armorer, and he hopes fervently that she’s survived and the kid mewls at him, pointing at the food, and he sighs out briefly and takes the helmet off.

They eat.

*

He’s jerked awake by the sounds of the alarm in the cockpit, and he heads to the ladder, undertunic and pants wrinkled and twisted from his piss-poor sleep, the new bandage at his neck spotted with slowly leaking blood, and he knows they’re out of hyperdrive due to the sound the ship is making.

The kid sleeps soundly in the bunk next to where Din had tossed and turned, the book from the temple clutched in his tiny grasp. Din takes one look at him as he heads to the cockpit and the insistent noises from the nav comp.

Din had plugged in the coordinates Shanna had given him, each one leading to another message left for him in each port. _At least she’s still cautious_ ; he’d give her that. He pushes the button for the final data, and rubs his eyes as he reads the numbers again. And a third time.

A holo from –

“Cara?” his hand pauses over the PLAY toggle, shocked at not only hearing from the jumper, but also stunned that the location isn’t a lie.

The next destination – a place he wants to see almost less than Coruscant, for the rise of emotion and aching nostalgia it brings. Even though he and the kid hadn’t spent more than a few weeks there.

He shakes his head, accepting the lat and longitude, and sets the course for Sorgan reluctantly, the ship descending smoothly as he returns to the main concourse of the ‘Crest, his hand going to his helmet immediately.

~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm using bits and pieces from SW lore in my own way and timeline in order to move this story along. Please forgive any glaring errors.
> 
> I hope Shanna isn't too thinly developed. Thanks for allowing me to add her into this! I chose to make her a Zabrak as I'm totally fascinated by the species, and while I know they're obviously not from Jakku, I wanted her to have a more mysterious past as she's bounced around a lot.
> 
> I have this set up now to finish in two more chapters; I still feel strangely about the sound of this piece, but I have really enjoying doing something different than my normal fare. 
> 
> I thank every one of you for following along with me and for the kudos/comments/bookmarks. Y'all are the best.
> 
> Two more to come. This is the way!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorgan proves to be anything but backwater.

“Why are you here?”

The Mandalorian holds the kid, who’s making grabby motions toward the ex-shock trooper that sits with them around her tiny fire. The burning logs crackle and Din finds the sound to be relaxing, almost reminiscent of the hiss of the forge in the covert.

He hopes – fervently, after what had happened on Nevarro – that the ones that survived are all right, and they’re out there somewhere, moving the covert, beginning again. He shoves guilt down and crosses his legs under one another, being careful of the rifle ammo on his right leg.

Cara watches the kid; her face is impassive, but Din knows there’s something going on there. “What?” he says, as the kid still reaches for her.

“Why does he trust me now?”

“Because I do,” he replies simply. He shrugs. “He learns from experience. Just like the rest of us. He knows loyalty and he knows friends.”

The warmth radiates through the circle, and he jounces the kid a few more times before sighing and handing him off to Cara, as the kid is now whimpering and flailing his arms.

She jerks, taken aback, but accepts the baby and smiles tentatively down at him, her face soft in the yellow light. Stars dot the sky, impossibly huge, and Din pulls the book they’d taken from the temple on Coruscant out of the blanket he’s still using as a sling. It works, why not? The kid looks back at him, as if to seek approval, and when he nods, he climbs up Cara’s arm and tucks himself into her neck.

“Uh,” she starts. Din’s mouth twitches upward behind his helmet; Cara laughs helplessly and pulls the kid down into a side hold. “You’re tickling me,” she tells him, and hands the kid a piece of meat that he immediately tears into, his entire attention on the food. “He likes to eat.”

“He’s growing. Albeit slowly,” Din answers; he’s sure she can hear the frown in his voice. “Cara.”

Holding the book out to her, he waits for her answer as she pages through it unhurriedly, shaking her head. The kid gurgles and eats and Din watches him, turning his helmeted head only when Cara says “hey, Mando.”

“I stayed on Nevarro long enough to fix my chain code,” she tells him, not looking up, still flipping through the odd book, “but I had some spare time, and I like this place. It’s fun, and quiet when I need it to be. So here I am. Aren’t you worried about the Imps still? Why are _you_ here? What about – ”

“Following a lead,” he cuts her off. He’s not thinking about the little village they’d spent three weeks in, and he’s definitely not thinking about the kindness and heart of the woman, Omera, and the fact that he might admit only to himself he had wanted her to see him. He’s not thinking about the fact he could have had his own family, despite his loyalty and desire to belong to his covert. Despite his years supporting them, because they’d supported him, had cared for him, had saved him. He loved them, the same way they seemed to love him.

His gut knots, and he shakes his head imperceptibly. He doesn’t know.

He doesn’t know if it would have worked. And for sure he’ll never know. And the kid will have to spend his life – at least part of it – running from Imps and gods knows what else with a Mandalorian for a guardian.

Biting the inside of his cheek, he pulls the thumb drive he’d gotten from Shanna Maksy, the Zabrak woman that had been his partner in hunting, although briefly. Another thing he’s not thinking about. “A contact Carga sent me to had this info, and I don’t understand some of it.” He slips it into his gauntlet, and the holo plays, the scrolls of data that Shanna had found rolling by almost too quickly. Cara watches, and when he sees her eyes widen he pauses the playback.

“You see something?”

“Yeah. This is about the Jedi and their last known whereabouts,” she responds, deliberate and frowning. The Mando nods in agreement, the kid making a satisfied sound, and as Din watches him, the bone of his finished meal floats in the air toward the fire. His mouth pinches and the kid’s face is pure concentration – the fire pops as the fuel is added to and the kid relaxes back against Cara’s arm. “He needs help,” Din says finally, still watching the kid, who looks pleased but tired. “Help I can’t give him.”

Cara’s eyebrows raise and she curls her lips up toward her left ear. “I don’t know, Mando. So far you’ve proven yourself a pretty good dad.”

“Don’t,” he warns, but she’s looking at the book again. “Where did you say you got this?” He reaches out for the kid, who comes to him willingly, and Din’s tight shoulders relax. What is happening to him?

“On Coruscant. In a ruined building we holed up in before I met my contact. It’s – I might have been dreaming,” he muses. “But if I was, so did the kid.”

The holo is still scrolling, and Cara touches the projection to pause it. “What’s a Kyber crystal?”

The kid is snoozing in Din’s grasp, but opens his eyes at that word. He gurgles and looks between her and the Mando, and Din just shakes his head. “Not sure. I looked for more info on it while we were traveling here, but all I could come up with was a few statements on them being readily found throughout the galaxy, even if in small amounts. Something to do with the Jedi, I’d assume.”

Cara turns the book toward them and it’s open to the picture of the crystal with the word “Kyber” in basic under it. The kid screeches happily and sticks out a hand, and –

The book flares to life, the picture shining in the dimness of the forest, and Cara drops it and backs away just as Din stands and does the same. The book hangs in midair, the light pulsing and shining and Din reaches for his blaster, even though he knows a simple book can’t hurt him. But – does he?

“What the hell, Mando?”

Cara is gripping her own blaster, and Din shakes his head. “I guess I wasn’t dreaming,” he murmurs, his voice crackling in the gloom. The kid is moving and squirming and Din holds him tighter. The book stays suspended in the air; the picture gradually growing dim, until it slowly floats to the ground, and Din and Cara both take a step forward.

The kid yells again and this time, Din pulls him away just enough that he can point his visor at him. “No, _ad’ika_ ,” he says firmly. “Not this time.” The kid is whining and jerking at Din’s arm and Din slips him into the blanket-sling. “No!” his voice is sharper than he’d intended, but the kid has to understand. They don’t know what’s going on, and he’s not going to risk the kid for something they don’t understand. He’s been put in enough danger.

“Eh?” the kid manages before tears begin to form in his eyes, and Din’s shoulders rise, the wound at his neck suddenly firing up again. “I’m sorry, but no. We’ll figure this out first, get you some proper help. Maybe – ” he stops midsentence, looking at Cara. She shakes her head.

“Please.”

She crosses her arms as the light from the book slowly fades to nothing, and they can see the stars again. “I don’t know, Din,” she says.

He twitches at her usage of his given name; he doesn’t think she realizes she’s said it, as she’s still staring at the book, and touches it with her toe. “I wouldn’t ask,” he adds. “You know that.”

“Yeah,” she sighs out. “Lemme sleep on it.”

They slowly lower themselves to sitting again, the kid burrowing into Din, and then taking note of the quiet book, pushes against Din’s arms. He manages to slip free of Din’s grip, and before the Mando can do anything, he’s scooted over to the book and has grasped it in his tiny hands. “He really wants that thing,” Cara muses.

“It seems to want him, too,” Din says back, his tone icier than he’d anticipated. Worry floods his stomach and he finally holsters his blaster and raises his knees, resting his arms on them as he watches the child pull on the book’s pages, chewing it, tugging on it. “I don’t like this.” He rolls his lips into a thin line, the Beskar seeming weirdly extremely hot against his skin.

_There’s too many of them! What will we do?_

“You ever hear of anyone called Skywalker?”

She copies his posture and bites her lip. “Yeah.”

He’s not expecting this answer, and he sits up straighter. Night sounds draw the kid’s attention away from the book; he drops it and waddles toward the edge of the fire, where Din can hear the chirping of frogs and other things. “No,” he says tersely and grabs the hem of the kid’s coat. “Remember the spiders?” He tugs the baby to him, even though he’s struggling, and Cara frowns at him. “You’re being awfully short with him, dad.”

“Don’t call me that.”

The kid whines and shoves at Din’s gloved hand, and Din looks at him. “What’s going on? Why are you so fussy, kid?”

“Why are you so touchy? He’s a baby; he’s bored and we have no idea what kinds of things are going on inside his head. Cut him a break,” she points in Din’s direction. “What’s up with you?”

“Nothing,” he bites off. _I’m injured, I’m confused, I’m exhausted, and I’m new to this and I have no clue what I’ve gotten myself into_.

He keeps his mouth shut, and the kid gradually stops moving around, turning to lean against Din’s raised knees. He cocks his head, his ears drooping, and his left hand raises, going for the Beskar that covers Din’s face. The Mando doesn’t stop him, and the kid touches his helmet, and his coo is soft and dejected and Din rejects the notion that his eyes burn at the sound. _Krif_.

“I know,” he tells the little one, and his gloved fingers rise, taking a hold of the baby’s, and squeezing gently. He looks up at Cara. “Who’s Skywalker?”

*

They walk through the forest the next day; Din isn’t sure that what they’re doing is going to prove anything, but Cara holds the tracker and they follow her through the foliage. The book and the kid poke his side in various different ways, and he grunts a curse as the sharp edge of the book’s binding catches him under the ribs.

“Ow, kid,” he says, and the boy gurgles at him, his teeth showing, and Din just rolls his eyes. The leaves under their booted feet shuffle and slide and crunch and he realizes that they’re not too far off from the krill farmer’s village; he touches Cara on the shoulder. “Let’s head north,” he says quietly.

She doesn’t turn back to him, just moving her head so she can see him out of the corner of her eye. “Why? It’s closer this – ” she looks at him fully then, and pulls her mouth into a thin line. “Okay.” She recalibrates the tracker and they continue on in silence, the trees wavering, the wind picking up and blowing his cloak, wrapping it briefly around the child where he rests in the sling.

He’s thankful she’s there, and he’s more thankful she keeps her mouth shut.

The flowers and greenery have become dense; the air is thick and humid and he begins to sweat under his armor. The more they walk, the odder he feels.

The sun is out, but it filters through the thick canopy of trees and motes of dust and bugs zip past his periphery, and the kid is pressed to his side, not moving and not making a sound. That in and of itself is _really_ odd, and Din looks down at the kid, touching the little one’s foot through the blanket.

“You feel something?” he asks. “This place is off.” He looks up as the kid makes a weird warble, and he draws his blaster, Cara doing the same without him saying anything.

“There,” he says as he draws up next to her; she’s stopped at the foot of the small-ish hill/mountain they’d been approaching for the last hour or so. It’s medium sized compared to others he’d seen; even the sand structures on Tattooine were more impressive.

But there’s a strong sense of – decay? age? strength? coming out of this place he’s not sure is a good or bad feeling. It’s stronger than anything he’s ever experienced, except for how he’d felt when he’d woken from that dream in the old temple.

And how he’d felt when he’d been found and saved after his parents –

“Kid!”

he shouts as the kid suddenly _jerks_ out of the sling and into the air, landing on the ground with a nimbleness that belies his age and propensity toward waddling while walking. The book falls to the ground, but before Din can pick it up, the kid has gestured with his left hand, and the book rises and follows him.

_Has he been doing this the whole time? Was he the one moving the book?_

Just as Din’s revelatory thought hits him, the kid takes off; Din is certainly experienced in how fast the little thing can move, and he and Cara follow him quickly into the mouth of a small cave that hides under what looks like a Cambylictus tree. He’s only seen pictures of Endor before, but he knows Cara’s been there, and wonders distractedly if she thinks this place looks like it does.

“He just floated,” she starts. Din puts a hand briefly on her arm. “Please, don’t,” he interjects. She purses her lips and raises her eyebrows.

“Let’s go.”

They follow the quickly moving baby into the hollow of the cave, where they can both see softly glowing light that isn’t coming from any of their own equipment.

*

Kyber crystal.

More to the point, Kyber _crystals_.

The seam of light that breaks up the monotony of the cave wall is green and brown and red and yellow and Din doesn’t think he can name all the colors there. The stone is wet as is the ground they’re walking on, and Din doesn’t need to switch his headlamp on in order to see the five or six strands of crystals that grow throughout the small cave.

The kid is bouncing and waddling back and forth from one strip of bright crystal to another; Din worries he’s going to over excite himself, but then also remembers this is the same kid who can lift a mudhorn and also most likely made a book float in the air multiple times with no strain.

“Do you think Skywalker is still alive?”

He murmurs the question to Cara, who’s examining the hard glasslike structures that make up the bodies of the crystals, touching them with her fingers after a quick pat to make sure they’re not hot. The cave is damp, but also dry, which is a weird contradiction that makes Din angry and confused at the same time.

What happened to simple bounty hunting?

His laugh, metallic and barked, makes Cara look back at him.

“I don’t know, Mando,” she shrugs as she finds the edge of a flat rock and perches on it. “He was a myth before I knew he wasn’t, so I don’t really know what’s true and what’s not. Lots of things get exaggerated. And there might be more than just the one; again, I was kinda busy killing Imps at the time.” She smiles but it’s tight. “I think I know someone we can ask, though. If you’re sure,” she trails off. Rubbing her arms, she looks around the cave and then at the kid as he coos and runs and trills strange warbled words while the book floats in the air behind him.

Din recognizes Cara’s strength in the simple movements she makes; she’s like him, in more ways than he cares to admit, and he’s sorry for her, for that. He knows what it’s like to lose family, oh, yes. And he knows in his own way what it’s like to lose an entire home due to war and devastation, and he swallows hard under his cowl and wraps as he sits next to her.

“I’m sure.”

The kid shrieks and Din halfway stands, his hand on his blaster again. “What?” he asks, making sure no one’s come in or approached them that they didn’t catch sight of. “You all right?”

The kid is patting one of the seams of color; it’s purple and violet and Din stands up, coming to where the kid is and he crouches next to him. “This one’s loose,” he tosses over his shoulder at Cara. “Have a look-”

He’s reached out to the thing to see if anything will make it move, as the kid is still fidgeting and warbling baby-words and tugging at Din’s pant leg under his greave. He pulls on the crystal, and falls over backward as it comes way easier than he’d expected.

He lands hard on his back, his _oof_ whooshing out of him, and the kid is suddenly there next to his head, touching his Beskar covered cheek, concern in his huge eyes, but Din just hands him the crystal, and says _okay_ , _Ad’ika_ softly.

The crystal’s light shocks him; it pulses the second it touches the kid’s hand, and Din turns his head to the side as he’d been staring wide eyed, the visor of his helmet not enough to help at this close proximity.

“Kid!” he shouts and jerks to a sitting position, trying to take the thing from the kid, as he’s afraid it’s hot.

It isn’t.

It’s warm, yes, but the kid continues to hold it, letting the silvery purple glow change the green of his skin to something else – Din’s never seen an expression like that on the little thing’s face before.

The baby burbles and trills and both Mando and Cara, who’s crouched next to him, her own hand going out to tentatively touch the thing, stare in wonder and _what_ _the_ _hell is happening_ looks cross their faces.

_Drip_

_Drip_

The cave’s dampness is oppressive suddenly, and yet not. Din shudders and the kid looks at him, his dark eyes lit by the fire from the heart of the crystal, and he coos and reaches out the hand that holds the purple shining thing.

Din takes it, and trembles again.

“Why?”

The baby just smiles, and shoves up against him, holding one of his gloved fingers with a clawed hand, his ears rising and falling, and Din bites his lip so hard he can feel the blood roll down his chin.

Cara touches his shoulder.

“I know where to take you both next,” her voice is soft with wonder. “Not sure if you’ll get all the answers you want, but you need to try. Really.”

“Yes,” he answers, and the kid squeaks and puts his hand over Din’s that holds what he assumes is a Kyber crystal, and he wants to lie down and put his hands over his face and just sleep for a decade.

“What is it with this backwater skug hole planet?”

Cara takes her turn to laugh, and it echoes through the cave, reverberating for so long he’s not sure if it was a real sound to begin with.

~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for all the wonderful feeback/kudos/comments. I am beyond thrilled to be part of this fandom. 
> 
> I'm almost ready to wrap up this particular story. One more chapter should do it, and I hope that my using the SW lore as I chose to in order to move the story along has not thrown anyone off. I appreciate all patience! If there are any HUGE glaring errors, let me know.
> 
> This is...you know. ;)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Mando, the kid, and Cara approach their final destination, and maybe some answers.

He can see the top of the ‘ _Crest_ rising through the trees, and his heart is a bit lighter at the sight.

It had rained on their walk back from the cave; the kid is sleeping in the sling the Mandalorian wears, the purple crystal clutched in his hands, their little talons touching the brightness of the thing.

Din finds he can’t look at it for very long; it flares when the kid’s skin brushes it, and despite the polarization in his helmet, it still hurts his eyes. He’s really surprised it doesn’t heat up, but it hasn’t, and the kid, after his initial pass of the thing to Din, has continued to hold it, not wanting to relinquish it any more.

They shove through the last of the trees, and there’s the ‘Crest.

And Din curses, his _Mando’a haar’chak!_ loud enough to rouse the kid, who opens his eyes and shrieks, his hands going out so strongly he almost jerks Din off his feet.

The sun is warm enough in the arid clime to start the sweat rolling down his back, but he ignores it as he strides forward, the kid trembling and bouncing in his sling. The little girl that sits on the ground next to his ship shoots to a standing position and, while she has the grace to look chagrined, Din can tell she’s not sorry, really.

“Does your mother know where you are?”

He barks the question at her. Winta smiles and skip-runs to them, reaching her own arms out for the kid. Din sighs for what seems like the one hundredth time and hands him over, the kid carrying the crystal with him, Winta kissing the top of his fuzzy head and making cooing sounds back at him. Cara stands next to Din for a moment, then cracks a huge grin as she passes them, patting Winta on the top of her head as she waits for Din to open the ramp to the ship.

He does so, distractedly. “Winta.”

She looks up at him, and he’s surprised to see guilt cross her face. The noise of the ramp descending forces her to speak up. “Um. Well, she knows I’m out in the forest, looking for mushrooms. The harvest is taking a while to catch up, you know. Hey, what’s this?” she asks as she touches the crystal in the kid’s hands.

“Don’t,” Din almost-shouts at her.

It does nothing.

He relaxes without realizing he’d been tense, and the kid just garbles things at her and holds up the crystal that hadn’t responded to her touch.

Cara is making the ship ready, and Din is thankful for her hurry. He can’t believe he has to deal with one more thing he’s not expected, despite the fact he likes Winta –

He puts his gloved hand on her shoulder and leans so he’s at her height. “You need to go back home. Now.”

“I saw your ship cross,” she tells him. “Mama didn’t; I don’t think any of the other villagers saw either. Me and some of the other kids were out catching fireflies and I saw the engines pass. You guys aren’t very good at being sneaky. For bounty hunters,” she adds, frowning. “What are you doing here, anyway? Isn’t it dangerous?”

She bounces the kid in her grasp and he laughs, gurgling and Din straightens up. “Cara,” he says more loudly. “Are you close?”

“Yeah,” her voice echoes from the interior of the ship, which is making noises that he equates with warming up. “But we’re gonna have to stop for fuel.” He twists his lips and looks at Winta and the baby again. His stomach aches; from hunger and from other things he doesn’t care to examine.

“That’s why we need to leave,” he answers her. “I – we were following – it’s not important. Winta, you’ve got to go.”

She meets his gaze through the helmet, and he sees sorrow and something else there he’s not used to seeing in children’s faces that aren’t foundlings or –

She’s lost her father, he remembers, and he knows she’s not as innocent as he’d think. Or as innocent as he’d like for her to be. And that’s most likely worse than a lot of things he’s seen out of other kids.

“I know,” she says, slowly handing the kid back to Din. He clutches at the boy for a moment, his mind a whirl of thoughts that he has a hard time shoving away, to that lockbox that’s been way too active lately. “I just wanted,” she starts, and then sighs, her thin shoulders heaving and tightening and for a moment, Din really hates their situation and _what the hell is he doing_.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, not sure if she can hear him through the modulator of the helmet. “I am.”

“I’ll tell mama you’re okay,” Winta says, wiping her face as he realizes she has tear tracks there. He swallows and shakes his head. “Don’t,” he interjects. “Please. I don’t want any more danger here than is necessary. Which is really none.”

She touches the kid with a hand, and the kid grips her finger, the sorrow in the droop of his ears apparent. “I don’t know if I feel worse or better,” she whispers, her tone soft and cracked, her young voice sounding decades old. “I thought seeing him again would help. It really doesn’t.”

Din nods, and understands.

She looks up at him as the engines fire to life, the roar sounding like home to him, and his stomach unknots briefly even though he’s not happy to leave her like this. Even if he’s sorry she’d taken the time to possibly endanger herself by doing so.

“You can tell your mother we’re okay,” he decides suddenly. “Just not today. Wait a bit. Till the heat, whatever there might be, dies down.” He puts a hand out and rests his glove on her neck, and he can feel the heat that always seems to come from little children. He swallows again, and curses under his breath.

She nods and turns, moving away from the ship, so she won’t get hurt in the takeoff. “Wait,” she says, and suddenly runs back toward him, and clutches his hand, pulling so he has to bend over to hear her.

“What’s your real name?”

It hasn’t been spoken in years, save by a few only recently, and he hesitates. He looks Winta in the eyes, and he knows of anyone, she’s the one that deserves to know it. She cares for his boy, and helped them have a short time of rest that was almost normal, and he knows she’ll not use the knowledge against him.

And maybe one day she can share it with her mother, too, who Din aches to think of. He can feel her hands on his arms still, can remember her kindness, can lock away the hurt he realizes may never leave him in regards to what she could have been to him and the kid. And he prays to whomever will listen that she can be happy, even if he can’t, in that way.

“I can’t take it back, once I’ve told you.”

She nods, solemn and serious and he knows she gets it. “I’ll keep it here,” she points to her chest. “You helped us. I won’t forget that.”

He pushes his lips together in a thin line, and he puts one knee on the ground in front of her. “I’m Din.” It feels rusty and weird in his mouth and he doesn’t like saying it, as it hasn’t been a part of his life in a long enough time to matter much, anymore. It’s like that person isn’t even there any longer.

But she asked, and he finds he’s all right with saying it to her, even if it tastes metallic and bloody behind his clenched lips.

“Din,” Winta says, rolling the name around like a smooth pebble. “…you look like Mando to me.”

He snorts and the burn in his eyes dissipates as he stands. “Yeah,” he answers. “Me too.”

Cara shouts at him from the ship, and he turns. “Take care of yourself,” he says to the little girl suddenly. “And your mother.”

That last part is whispered, and he’s running toward the ship and the home he knows before he can do or say anything stupid enough to break his creed or to change his life for good. Again.

*

The kid sleeps, his hands locked around the crystal as they fly through hyperspace, stars blurring and shifting around them.

Din holds the book in his hands, and clicks a switch at the base of his helmet as he focuses more closely on the thing. His scans don’t indicate anything out of the ordinary, which makes him frown and flip pages and finally he chucks the thing across the cockpit, surprising Cara enough for her eyes to open.

“Thanks,” she says dryly. “My first nap in weeks.”

He ignores her sarcasm and opens the file Shanna had given him for the tenth time since they’d plugged in coordinates for Chandrila, using the old Perlemian Trade Route to slip as quickly as they’re able to the capital planet of the current New Republic.

Din scoffs; _what a load of bantha shit_ , as anyone from the Outer Rim would tell you. People with money were going to do whatever the hell they wanted to, no matter what the Republic government might say or believe. Credits will go a long way toward making even the sanest of people do things that would come across as immoral or dangerous.

He reaches a hand down and touches the Beskar that coats his thigh. It’s back where it should be; he knows that. His head squeezes like someone’s fitted a vise over it, and he clenches his jaw to relieve the tension.

He turns in his chair to look at the sleeping kid; he remembers the sight of the Imperial emblem the client he’d almost left the kid with had worn, and he fights off a tremble that instead forces a weird noise from his stomach.

“You need to eat,” Cara yawns. “I’ll watch him.” She looks at the baby in his container that Kuiil had made for him, and Din feels yet more sorrow wash over him. “Don’t know that I can,” he answers truthfully. “But I do need to check the hull for damage. We’re not moving at as much capacity as this ship has.”

“Sure,” she answers, and turns to face the windows. “Take your time.”

He nods and slips out of the cockpit, touching the top of the carrier the child is sleeping in once.

Sliding down the ladder that leads to the main hanger of the ‘Crest, he stops in the small galley near the ‘fresher, eyeing the last of the polystarch. He’s not sure he wants to eat, but his gut rumbles and makes a decision for him. Knowing Cara is up in the cockpit, and that he would hear her quickly if she were to come down, he pulls down the food, quickly adds water to it, and collapses to the bench that normally holds his extra gear and works in progress. Now, it’s a makeshift kid play space mixed with tool storage and he makes sure he picks up the one spanner he finds on the ground in order to keep it in a safe spot.

He removes his helmet as the bread finishes rising, and he takes his gloves off, wiping his right hand over his stubbled face as he shoves the bread into his mouth.

The ship rocks in time with the power of the engines, and as he continues to eat, he can smell himself and he realizes he doesn’t remember the last time he’d cleaned up other than a cursory splash at the sink. His skin feels slick and he sticks a hand in his hair, frowning at the amount of dirt that comes off on his fingers.

Not exactly important how you look when you’re covered in armor.

He finishes eating, and standing on weary legs, crosses to the small mirror mounted near the ‘fresher and he locates his shaving equipment, making quick work of the messy half-beard that had been trying to grow like weeds on his chin and upper lip.

The hot water feels like something he’s only dreamed about. Closing his eyes, he splashes his face and searches for a towel, reaching out for the fabric as he finds it –

Wiping his eyes, he opens them quickly, the kid standing next to him, his height barely at Din’s knee. The towel the kid had floated toward him drops out of his hands, and the kid smiles at him, the sight of the tiny teeth twisting something inside Din’s chest and he bends and picks the baby up, his face once again bare in front of the little one.

“You’re a sneaky one,” he says softly, and the boy gurgles, the sound full of spit and he puts his hand on Din’s cleanly shaven face, and Din’s skin heats under the touch.

“Why?”

The kid burbles an answer in words only he can understand, and Din takes note of the crystal still held in the kid’s other hand as they cross to the bench and Din sits, still holding him in a loose grip. The kid makes another sound, tired and happy all at once, and curls into Din’s stomach, one hand holding the crystal, the other fisting in Din’s undersuit that pokes out through his armor.

Din leans his head back against the wall, and _why why why why_ echoes inside, the word bouncing off his skull and he looks down his nose at the purple rock in the kid’s hand, the veins of silver in it beautiful and yet terrifying and he has a quick flash of his dream when they’d been in the ruined temple and he wonders if Cara is right in taking them to Chandrila, and to the people she’d known before her home had been destroyed, too.

And the fact isn’t lost on him that they’ll be passing nearby to Mandalore using the Perlemian Route and

_The night of a thousand tears_

He knows Moff Gideon won’t give up; whatever this kid has that makes him so important to the Imp – it’s obviously something that no one else has or something that will make a huge difference whatever the hell the Empire, or its remnants, is trying to do. It’s been five years since the last Death Star was destroyed, and Din’s seen more Imp activity since that happened than he’d seen during the full occupation.

That’s something that makes his brain question his assumed sanity, and he again lets his head drop against the wall, holding the kid, the little thing’s soft breathing lulling him to a partial doze as they fly toward what he hopes and _fuck_ prays will be some final answers or help for him and the boy.

~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies; I had to extend this one chapter as it was getting too long and I really want to wrap it up in a way that satisfies me as well as is true to the characters. Also apologies for the delay, as RL gets in the way of a lot of stuff. :)
> 
> Thank you again to everyone who's read/commented/kudo'd/bookmarked/taken any time on this. I hope the ending will be worth it. 
> 
> This is the way! One more to come.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Din's found the child's kind. Will he be safe?

They come out of hyperspace a lot sooner than he’s ready to.

The Mandalorian holds the kid in his lap, and Cara sits next to him in the jump seat as she tells him where to land. The trees that cover the lovely planet of Chandrila are thick and lush and he doesn’t think he’s seen this much green since he was a child, and that thought forces him to swallow heavily. His chest is tight and he sucks in a breath, guiding the ship in to the dock easily, following the flight personnel that are waving him in.

The kid reaches out a hand, and puts his clawed fingers on the yoke where Din has a hold of it, and he squeals as Din lands the ‘ _Crest_ , the draft from the engines blowing the local vegetation around, almost flattening it. Din breathes weightily when they’ve landed; powering down the engines, he sits back, and wonders for the umpteenth time if this is the right thing. And then the kid babbles and shrieks and lifts both his hands and the book Din had chucked across the cockpit comes flying to him – and Din rolls his lips inward, the thin line white and dry.

Yeah, it’s the right thing to do. Even if he worries about what’s going to happen, and even if he knows it’s the best thing for the kid. Regardless, they’ll see what the lay of the land is, talk to the people Cara knows (or knows of) and then he can make up his mind.

He does know he’s not leaving the kid there by himself. Never again.

“Ok, _ad’ika_ ,” he says, standing, lifting the kid and the book as Cara rises with him. “Let’s see what the hell we can see.”

*

The kid is fussy and squirmy as they wait for Cara.

Din takes him to a small park that’s next to the administration building Cara’s gone into. He doesn’t want to be anywhere near a place like that; having taken one look, he feels – it’s familiar, but he can’t put his finger on it. And that pisses him off, and he stomps to a bench, where he plops the kid down with his crystal and the book. The weather is balmy and the trees are gorgeous and Din’s eyes hurt from the sun and the variance in colors and he wonders just what in the _fuck_ has he gotten himself into. He sits ramrod straight on the stone seat and his hand continuously slides back toward his holster and his blaster, although this place doesn’t feel dangerous. It’s full of New Republic senators and workers and pilots and just people that are moving about their daily lives, and he shakes his head, trying to unwind his twisted stomach and brain.

He wonders what Cara is actually doing, and the kid makes a sound, querulous and almost an “ _ah_?” and Din starts, his attention having wandered. He looks at the kid, who is waddling toward some other children that are playing in the nearby distance; Din stands and scoops him up, murmuring _where are you going?_ as he tries to settle the boy at his hip.

The kid struggles and sticks out his hands, one of them still filled with the purple sparkling crystal, and Din follows his gaze to the other children. “You want to play?” he asks in a low voice, the vocoder in his helmet crackling. The wind picks up, and his cloak blows around them both, and for a moment –

It’s just him and the kid, and the armorer says

_A clan of two_

in his head, and he blinks and holds the boy in his arms and Din feels the grip of a faceless Mandalorian warrior holding _him_ , and he sees the destruction he’s leaving behind, and he never wants any child to have to feel that ever again. Least of all this one.

He blinks heavily again, and his cloak blows away from him, and he’s in the park on Chandrila, and the kid burbles and touches his helmet-covered cheek with his fingers and Din smiles at him, even though he can’t see it. “I have you. _Ori’haat. Aliit.”_ His family. A promise. He’ll do what he has to in order to figure this crazy shit out.

“Is that a Kyber crystal?”

Din looks away from the kid, his free hand going to his blaster, but he stops himself; this is a place of peace, and if any Imps managed to get within hailing distance of Chandrila, they’d be dead before they could draw breath. The new senate – he scoffs, the sound coming out like a bark – well, he’d hope they’d do better than they had in the past. The Outer Rim could tell them about how they’d failed, that’s for sure.

He shakes off his thoughts and looks at the young human boy that’s approached him.

The sun breaks through the trees and Din is momentarily blinded; the kid jounces up and down in his grasp and babbles at the boy that’s standing in front of them. He’s about five, with dark hair and dark expressive eyes that Din thinks are way too old to belong to such a young kid, but some had said the same of him, so he gets down on one knee in front of the boy.

Din nods solemnly at him, and the kid shrieks happily and holds out his crystal to show the newcomer, even as Din is trying to shush him and grabs at the crystal, trying to tuck it into the pockets at his belt –

“Is that a Kyber crystal?” the human boy repeats.

Din’s head suddenly aches and he wants nothing but to get the crystal away from his body. He licks dry lips and pauses in his motions. “Yes,” he answers slowly. “My boy found it.” He holds it up, and the sun glances off it, the purple becoming iridescent and the silver threads that barely show up glow like they do when the kid is touching it.

The human boy is looking at it, his slightly large-nosed face tilting one way, and then the other. His longish hair blows in the temperate wind, and Din again has a wish to let this strange child see the crystal; maybe he has an answer –

“Stop,” Din stands up, tucking the crystal into his pocket at last, holding the kid closer to him. He feels a shiver tug at his spine, and he meets the eyes of this child he doesn’t know and the _child can see him_.

He may not be bare technically, but Din feels as though his armor is stripped from him, and this boy can see his face, and his hand feels for his blaster even as a woman in long robes and an elaborate hair style suddenly appears out of nowhere next to the boy. She smiles at both of them, but turns to the dark haired child, and touches his shoulder.

“Ben.”

The little boy turns to her and Din swears he sees a shock of – disappointment? anger? – cross the young face. He takes an involuntary step back and tucks the kid closer to his Beskar, and closer to his blaster.

 _There are too many of them! What should we do_?

He swallows and shakes his head, and the woman is speaking to the boy.

“…uncle is looking for you.”

“Okay, mom,” the child says, and then looks back at the kid in Din’s arms. “Can I play with him later?”

A brick-like slam hits Din’s head, and he blinks and his eyes water, and the boy’s mother forcibly turns him around and gives him a gentle push toward the other children and a few adults that seem to be waiting for the boy. He goes, reluctantly, and Din feels a release like that of a headache disappearing, and he stumbles slightly forward, the kid in a tight grip that forces a squawk from him.

“I’m sorry,” the woman says, and Din has to focus hard on her. “My son. He’s learning, still.” She points to Din’s pocket, where the edge of the crystal is sticking out. “…Who are you?”

Din doesn’t answer her, yet. He shifts the kid, shushing him with a quiet _k’uur_ and he cocks his head, the sun sparking off the Beskar and the woman squints as she continues to look at him. She doesn’t seem dangerous, he thinks, but he’s certainly been wrong before. “You’re new here,” she adds. “I haven’t seen you before. It’s not usual for Mandalorians to be on Chandrila. Or anywhere near the senate, actually.”

He nods and relaxes a tiny bit, his shoulders lowering from his ears. “My child,” he says, clearing his throat, the helmet translating that as a rough snarl. “He’s – we’ve – this crystal,” he fumbles through his words, which is not a common occurrence. He’s a man of few words and he’s mostly succinct and Din’s suddenly angry. “I don’t know what’s happening,” he bites off. “I don’t know you.”

She smiles at him, but she’s wary, too, after his outburst. _Where the hell is Cara?_

“I’m sorry; that was rude of me. I’m Leia Organa. I’m a senator,” she says, sticking her hand out. “Welcome to Chandrila, Mandalorian.”

*

He’d rather be in the ‘ _Crest_ , but the small table near the edge of the park, under an overhang of the senate building will have to do for now. Cara’s seated with them; she seems abnormally quiet, and Din wonders if she knows this woman.

They have tea, but Din isn’t drinking in front of others, and Cara seems too distracted, so Leia pushes hers away as she leans forward in her chair. Her hair is looped artfully around her head, the cream and brown of her clothing complementing her skin, and Din flashes on Omera suddenly and her fanciful embroidery and her braids and he sighs and shakes his head, letting the kid tug at his gloves and hold on to a finger as he holds the crystal with his other hand.

“You can leave him here,” Leia says again. “We have a school, and several other children. He’d be safe.”

“The Empire is still looking,” Din shoots back, and the kid squeaks when Din’s hands flex. “I can’t trust they won’t find him here. Even with all this,” he sweeps an arm out at their surroundings. “I can’t.”

 _You are as its father_.

“The Empire is gone,” Leia emphasizes the last word. Din snorts, even though he wants to trust her; he does. The kid seems to like her, but they’ve known her for exactly two hours, and despite her bearing and the fact that she’s a senator, well.

“Your son,” he starts. “He’s a … force user?”

Her face shutters, and for a moment Din is sorry he brought it up again. But he waits, and she finally takes a long drink from her now lukewarm tea, and threads her fingers together on the table. “He is. My brother is as well. He runs the school. My son, Ben, he’s – strong, for a young child. The Jedi had been gone for a long time; something’s changed, though. It's different, now.” She takes her turn to shake her head, and Din blinks, feeling as though his head is caught in a vice. This time, though, it’s just a headache.

“You were a dropper?”

Cara starts, and then nods. “Yes, senator. _Were_ being the operative word.” She smirks, but it disappears quickly. Cara fidgets; Din wants to put a hand over her leg to stop her nervous movements, but he knows that would earn him a punch to the arm or face, and then they’d have to fight in public, and he’s not up to that right now.

“You’re okay here, soldier,” Leia says, going for comfort in her tone. “Things have changed, as I said.” She takes another long draught, and turns to the kid that’s playing on the table with Din’s glove, wrapping it around the crystal and cooing at it. Din gently takes it back, slipping it on, and he picks up the purple gem, turning it back and forth.

“I’ve come a long way for this,” he muses, almost to himself. “I’ve made sacrifices and seen my people killed and forced to hide, again. _I’ve_ killed. I’ve hidden this boy and myself and endangered people I’ve come to like,” he nods at Cara, “and people that have saved me. He’s lived a life in hiding and has been endangered at almost every turn, and I don’t understand why or what’s going on and I barely have scratched the surface of what the ‘force’ actually is. He’s got it,” he slams a hand down on the table, and the kid jumps and waddles to him, and Din gathers him up. “He’s got this ‘force,’ and all I know is what I read as a child. The Mandalorians don’t exactly have a good history with these Jedi, apparently.” His back pinches as he tenses, and the kid wraps a hand around his pauldron. “But I don’t know what else to do.”

“That’s the most I’ve ever heard you say, Mando,” Cara snorts. She turns to Leia, and the sun is setting behind them, and it’s one of the prettiest things Din’s ever seen. “We need your help. I had hoped you were still here.”

“You know me?”

“I know of you. I knew your name was connected to ‘Skywalker,’” Cara’s voice is low and hesitant. She leans forward and her hair sweeps her shoulders in the soft evening breeze, “from stories I’d heard. From others in my unit that were from Alderaan.”

Leia starts violently, and Din swears he hears her jaw crack as she turns her eyes on Cara fully.

“…we have some things to discuss, apparently. But for now,” she looks at the kid in Din’s arms, “I want you to be assured of your safety, here. The Empire is gone.”

“And you’re a fool if you believe that,” Din sighs, but the kid is burbling and standing and Din lets him toddle over to Leia’s side of the table. The sun is fully set now, and Leia stands, the kid’s arms rising to her, and she picks him up. The crystal in his hands is the last thing shining in the glow of dusk, and Din’s eyes widen as he sees the kid hand it with his baby noises to Leia, and the crystal flares to life as she holds it gently.

“You have it, too,” he says, almost accusingly. She nods.

“Will you take care of him?”

It came out of nowhere.

The kid is cooing and playing with the crystal in Leia’s hands, and she looks at him. “He will be cared for like one of our own.”

 _A life with me is no life for a kid_.

He swallows.

“I need to go to my ship,” he states suddenly. “Can I find you later?”

“We’ll be in the school building, just across there,” Leia tells him. Cara puts a hand out to his arm as he turns toward the shipyard and he stops, his other hand plucking hers off his sleeve, the Beskar gauntlet stiff and unyielding under her fingers. “I’ll go with them,” she tells him, and he jerks his head stiffly in the semblance of a nod.

“ _Ah_?”

He doesn’t turn to look the kid in the face; he closes his eyes and lets his shoulders slump. “It’s okay,” he whispers. “Go with them, kid.”

He waits until the two women and the kid move off into the trees, the sound of their voices fading gradually as they walk away from him. It’s a good sign when the kid doesn’t cry out or wail for him. And that makes him feel even worse.

He feels light. And empty. And he hates it.

Shoving his pulse rifle further behind his back, he strides as fast as he’s able toward the shipyard and the ‘ _Crest_ , his home.

*

He’s left the kid with relative strangers.

With _Jedi_. He guesses.

He shudders and closes the starboard side entryway to the ship with a flick of his gauntlet, and he takes the ladder to the cockpit, and sitting, begins to run diagnostics. The ship takes over, and he leans back in the pilot’s seat, and he turns to the crib that Kuiil had made, and he loathes that it's empty, and he puts his hands into it, taking out the little blanket, and something _plunks_ on the floor.

 _By creed, until it is of age or reunited with its own kind, you are as its father_.

The mythosaur skull necklace is slightly dulled from being chewed on. Din picks it up, the frayed cord knotted much too small now for his own neck, and he examines it in the red blinking lights of the cockpit.

He hesitates, and then raising his hands, he unsnaps the connections of his helmet to his cowl, and removes it, shoving his sweaty hair back from his forehead. He licks dry lips, and brings the talisman closer to his face.

“I’ve found your kind,” he whispers. “Jedi. Force users.”

He turns it over and looks at the intricate work that’s been put into the thing.

“It was too short.” His time with the boy. _It was too short._ He bites the inside of his cheek, his face burning, his eyes hot and dry.

Everything he’s done, everything he’s been through to get the kid here, what kind of sacrifice was enough? His people dead or scattered, friends dead, family and clan gone.

Moff Gideon still out there, looking for the kid. And now the kid has more that the Imp might want, the crystal possibly adding to his power, and Din curses and sweeps a hand out, his helmet going flying, the Beskar knocking into buttons and forcing weird sounds from the instrument panel.

His gloved hand clenches around the necklace, and he stands, going for his helmet, and he slips it back on –

He remembers the feel of his father’s hand in his

He remembers his mother’s arms around his shoulders

He remembers their _I love you’s_ as they hide him in the cellar as everything dies around them

He remembers the helmet and the sun that sparked off it of the man that had rescued him from the battle droids, and he remembers the feel of being carried away from the destruction and death of his homeworld, and he coughs up a sound that might be a sob, or a plea for mercy.

“I’m not leaving him.”

He tucks the skull into his pocket, and powers the ship’s testing cycle down, and he’s down the ladder and out the door before he can even think _gods help me_.

*

The kid is sitting with other children as Din enters the school, the brickwork and furniture comfortable and familiar and the dying warmth of the sun that has set heats the room still.

He sweeps past Leia and Cara, who are still talking in the corner, and Leia stands and calls out _Mandalorian_ , but he doesn’t stop until he reaches the kid, who shrieks out happily and puts his arms up when Din gets to him.

The other children stare up at him oddly; Din takes note of Leia’s young son, his face serious, his mouth drawn in a slight frown as he watches Din pick up the kid and retreat to the door of the school.

“Mando,” Cara says, her eyes wide and worried. “He’s fine.”

He cuts her off with a gesture. “We’ll be back in a minute.”

He pushes through the doors and they’re outside, the stars huge and lustrous, the greenery of Chandrila evident even in darkness, and he strides toward the other side of the park, where he can hear the fall of water. The kid struggles a bit, but as if he can sense Din’s mood, he soon quiets, and they’re at the river Din had heard quickly.

He takes in a breath and steps up to the bank, and sets the kid down as he sits himself. The kid warbles and coos, and turns toward him, putting his little hands on Din’s shin.

They’re totally alone, and in the dark, Din unsnaps the helmet again, and with a hiss, removes it.

Birds sing and night bugs call out and things rustle in the grass and heady soft wind blows his hair from his face, and Din looks out at the river, and then down at the kid.

“I’ve done what I said I would,” he starts, his words earning an _eh_? sound from the kid, who climbs into his lap, and casts his huge dark eyes at Din. He holds the crystal still, and Din touches it with one gloved hand, still shocked when it does nothing. “I’ve found your kind. You don’t need me anymore, really.”

The kid moves around, getting comfortable in his cradle of Mandalorian lap, and Din removes his glove, and fishes in his pocket, bringing out the mythosaur skull necklace. An owl hoots close by, and he hesitates, surprised by its nearness.

“But…” he stops, and swallows over the lump that’s annoyingly appeared in his throat. “But.”

He looks at the signet on his right pauldron, and as if in answer, the kid leans back, and laying his head on Din’s knee, reaches a hand up and touches the Beskar mudhorn.

“You remember that?” The smile on his bare face feels weird, and he rubs a hand over his unevenly stubbled chin. “You saved me, then, for the first time.”

He unfolds the cord of the necklace and, making sure the knot is secure, places it over the child’s neck and tucks it inside his jumper. “This is yours. Don’t forget it.”

The baby looks up at him from his prone position, and Din feels a pricking behind his eyes, and the teeth that shine at him in the near-dark are the best sight he thinks he might have ever seen. “You saved me,” he whispers.

The kid burbles and kicks his feet and laughs, and Din laughs with him.

“Can you save me again?”

The kid hands the crystal to Din, pushing it at him with an awkward baby grip, and he sticks a hand into his jumper, and pulls out the mythosaur. He immediately sticks it in his mouth, and Din shakes his head –

_Why don’t you hold on to this?_

“Why don’t you hold on to this, for me? Okay, _ad’ika_?”

A coo of agreeing.

Din snorts and wipes a hand under his eyes. He looks up and watches the stars in their infinite dance, and he wonders just which one is Mandalore, and he knows that he might be able to help change what happened to his people, and he’s not going to stop fighting for what’s right for his clan and –

“My boy.”

He watches the river and holds the kid until he hears voices, and he slides his helmet back on and stands when Leia and her son, Ben, and Cara approach him with a strange man in robes like those that Leia wears.

“Mandalorian,” Leia starts.

“Din,” he stops her.

She smiles.

“Din. This is my brother, Luke.”

Din sticks out an arm, and Luke grips it, hand to elbow.

The kid shrieks and bounces, and they all look at him as he takes up the mythosaur skull necklace and holds it up, for all of them to see. The night sky sparks off its tiny amount of Beskar, the metal winking and shining, reflecting the stars, and Din holds the kid a bit more tightly as the sound of the river echoes in his ears.

~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this thing did not go where I was planning, but I have so enjoyed the ride.
> 
> Thanks for being okay with my moving timelines and tech and whatever else around to suit this story, and I hope the ending is satisfying. 
> 
> I have truly found a home in Din's head, and I hope to see him more shortly. I also want to say a huge thank you to everyone who's kudoed/read/commented/bookmarked/subscribed/taken any time on this thing; you guys are amazing and I so so appreciate it. This was a huge challenge for me to do, as it is very different from my normal fare; I hope it isn't too wonky or jerky sounding. Thank you again for all your feedback and time!!
> 
> I chose not to put some of the characters in the tags for "surprise" value.
> 
> I adore Ben Solo and wanted him to come across as very powerful, but untrained.
> 
> I'm sure there will be more to come.
> 
> This is the way.

**Author's Note:**

> Yay series! I'm going to attempt to make these stories cohesive, but I don't usually outline as I write, so I'll do my best. I didn't anticipate this particular story to be so long and I'm going to have to break it up into chapters. I'm so enjoying writing in this fandom and being in Din's head, as much work as that is. :) I adore him and his little child, and I hope to hang around with them for a while.
> 
> So, I did some research on planets in the SW universe I'd like to send the two of them to, and I always have found Coruscant fascinating. I'm going to be 100% honest and say that I am using the setting in a manner that befits the story; I am a huge SW fan, but I'm not such a huge fan that I know every bit and nuance about the whole universe, so if what I write doesn't match what Lucas et al have created, apologies. I'm not sure they'd actually be able to get to Coruscant from the outer rim in an amount of time that I need for the story, so.... I also stole the idea from a bunch of different articles I've read about the Death Watch and the Vizla's for the purpose of moving the story along.
> 
> ETA: thank you to a reader who mentioned that the hyperdrive rings are used for ships that don't have one; I had assumed that Obi Wan (in Clone Wars) was using the ring almost like a Stargate to get his small ship further faster. Sorry about the incorrect tech. Just try and go with it! LOL I won't use it that way again.
> 
> One of the best things about fanfic is it _is_ fanfic. I am slightly worried still to jump into such a huge fandom, and man, the writing here is incredible. You all blow me away.
> 
> I try and write every day, but it doesn't always happen, so thank you in advance for your support and any time you take to read my ramblings! You don't know how much it's appreciated. I love writing. I love fanfic. I love the community and I love the experience.
> 
> More to come. This is the way.


End file.
